gotta bundle or be bundled

In light of the Apple News+ news (wherein Apple is bundling up subscriptions from 300+ mags & outlets and taking half of the $$), this Nieman Lab timeline of Medium’s history should read like a portentous, Jordan-Peele-crafted omen about what happens when publishers trust platforms to be nice & do the right thing & support journalism:

First, there’s the Breathless Coverage of Platform As Saviour stage, where the word “disruption” is tossed around a lot and being invited to the platform feels like being invited to a cool club. Then, suddenly, everyone’s allowed in — but, cue ominous horror movie soundtrack — no one seems to be making a lot of money, or really, any money at all. New made-up metrics, like getting awarded in “claps,” become a thing.

Because capitalism, advertisers rush the field and get people all kinds of excited. Publishers get that flushed, unsteady glow of someone who’s decided to give their ex just one more chance because damn, I mean, Ev really seems to mean it this time??  (<--This is the stage we think the Apple News+ thing is in). But then things crash and burn because well, math, and the ex/Medium/platform is like ummmmm so actually I still need to figure some things out. It’s not you, it’s me, but also I just secretly think I can save the internet without you (see: the entry for May 9, 2018).

Then, just when you think the platform has decided to acknowledge its limits and scale it back to a few paid contributors and paywalled work……….it decides, hey, fuck working with publishers, I’ll just *****be**** a publisher (see: the four magazines Medium has planned as of this year and also the Salty magazine kerfuffle from last week, and also Apple’s extremely fine position on creating original content in general).

So that’s our take on the Apple Bundle news, though let’s be honest, we weren’t out here about to pay $200 subscriptions to every other publication ourselves, either. So I guess we will see! Start your watches: we’ll be counting down ‘till when the next ‘where it all went wrong’ timeline drops.